Let’s be honest – managing multiple WordPress sites can get pretty hectic. With so many routine tasks to carry out, surely you’ll have little time left to focus on productive work. Fortunately, there are ways to make things easier. One option is to go in for managed WordPress hosting. However, if you’d rather handle it all on your own, there are some great tools to help you manage multiple WordPress websites from a single dashboard.
By automating recurring tasks and letting you quickly access different sites, these plugins help you stay on top of updates, backups, and lots of other day-to-day management functions.
📚 Table of contents:
Seven tools to help you manage multiple WordPress websites
We’re going to cover seven different tools. But these tools/plugins are not one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, you should base your choice on…
- The number of websites that you manage. That’s because the pricing model for most plugins is on a per website basis.
- The additional or extra features that each plugin offers. The good thing is basic features like updates and uptime monitoring are available with most plugins. What can tip the scales is the relevance of the additional features to your website.
- The user-friendliness of the interface.
In most cases, you’ll need to sign up for a free/paid account to have access to services, support or add-ons.
After we introduce all seven tools, we’ll share a detailed comparison table to help you make your decision.
1. ManageWP
ManageWP follows the freemium model – all the core features are available for free in a basic plugin and additional functions are bundled into premium add-ons. What’s nice, however, is the highly flexible pricing model (per month, per website) that ensures that you only need to pay for the features you use.
To use their service, sign up for a ManageWP account with your email and add your website.
Next, you’ll need to install the plugin on every website you add to the Admin panel in ManageWP. And once you launch your dashboard, you’ll find all the websites you add displayed there.
Working off an intuitive interface, you’ll be able to click and activate backups, check performance, monitor your website, and more.
⚙️ Key Features
- Integrates with Google Analytics
- Customizable maintenance mode
- Performance checks, store and track results, and include them in client reports
- Real-time backups, cloning, and migration
- SEO ranking tool
- A safe updates option that lets you create restore points and roll back updates
In addition, you can enable two-factor authentication.
Advanced users will also like that you can add code snippets to multiple websites.
2. CMS Commander
Our next plugin, CMS Commander, comes with a dashboard that resembles the native WordPress dashboard. Best of all, it’s easy to create reusable templates as well as entirely new WordPress websites, complete with pre-configured settings.
After a 30 day free trial, you’ll need to select one of their premium plans. Packages start at $12 per month for 10 websites, reaching $75 per month for 200 websites. Plus, you can add 20 sub-user accounts for $9 per month.
The plugin brings to the table standard features like two-factor authentication, updates, off-site backup and restore with a single click. That’s not all, you’ll also find built-in uptime monitoring and malware scanner.
⚙️ Key Features
- Configurable backups allow you to include/exclude specific folders, entire sites or just the databases
- Bulk install plugins and bulk post to any number of blogs
- Results of security scans form part of client reports
- Cloning, maintenance mode, database optimization
- Backlink and page speed tracking right on your dashboard
As for analytics, once you connect to your Google webmaster account, you’ll also find the stats of all your sites in one place and be able to track keywords.
What sets CMS Commander apart is the emphasis on content management, marketing, and monetization. The built-in content editor allows you to create or edit pages and posts on any number of blogs, bulk post, and schedule publishing.
The plugin also helps you to legally source images, videos and affiliate ads for free from 20+ external sources such as YouTube and Flickr. Besides, the powerful import function lets you import your own RSS feeds, CSV data feeds and text files.
3. WP Remote
Another plugin worth checking out is WP Remote. While it’s somewhat light on features, it’s a totally free solution to manage multiple WordPress websites. No premium add-ons, locked in features or subscriptions to pay for. While it may be a great option for some users, you may be forced to skip this one if it’s missing any specific feature that’s important to you.
From an easy-to-use interface, you can update WordPress with a single click and back it up as well.
⚙️ Key Features
- User-friendly interface
- Performance checks, analytics, maintenance mode
- Download a snapshot of your site
Aside from these features, the service uses an API to manage your sites. This added security measure means you can access your site without needing login credentials. WP Remote may just be the answer if you’re on a budget and looking for a simple plugin to easily manage multiple WordPress websites from a single dashboard.
4. WP Landing Kit
This plugin lets you seamlessly map domains to specific pages or other published resources, providing you with an array of powerful features to enhance your website’s capabilities.
It essentially allows you to handpick specific pages from your WordPress website and transform them into separate mini-sites, each with its own distinct domain (that you have to buy yourself). You simply designate one page as Site A, another as Site B, and so on.
This tool is exceptionally useful for those who are looking for a straightforward solution to create very simple single-page websites. With a single WordPress instance containing a unified suite of plugins and themes, you can configure different designs for each mini-site using tools like Elementor or Beaver Builder.
⚙️ Key Features
- Mappable post type options
- SSL enforcement
- Create microsites by mapping domains to any published resources in WordPress
- Unlimited domains
- Post redirect options
- Serve a single landing page across multiple URLs
- WooCommerce support to map individual products
Additionally, WP Landing Kit provides a user-friendly PHP API that lets developers easily handle domains through programmatic methods. The plugin doesn’t have a free version. Its premium plans start at $99 per year for one site license.
5. Jetpack Manage
We all know that Jetpack comes loaded with features. But did you know that one of Jetpack’s 35+ modules, Jetpack Manage, lets you manage multiple WordPress websites?
For this to work, the plugin needs to be active on all the sites, and you’ll need to connect to your WordPress.com account. Further, by simply toggling options, you can update plugins selectively on different sites, view your site stats, and switch between sites easily.
Bloggers will also love the ability to create, edit and post content to different blogs, all from a central editor.
⚙️ Key Features
- Selective updates
- View individual site stats
- Bulk posting
- Uptime monitoring and backups
Feature for feature, Jetpack Manage may not really be a match for the other plugins on this list. However, activating this module to manage multiple WordPress sites is a good idea if you’re already using Jetpack on your site. Aside from that, for functions like backup, monitoring uptime, and stats, you’ll need to activate other modules.
6. InfiniteWP
Yet another plugin worth checking out to manage multiple WordPress websites is InfiniteWP. It adopts a freemium model. Unfortunately, most of the functionality is locked in premium add-ons. What’s different about this plugin is that it requires you to install the software on your server. Effectively, this means no third party has access to your data.
The dashboard offers you a bird’s eye view of all your sites. Simply by hovering over each site, you can view details like backup, updates, WordPress version and more.
One click updates, backups, and restores are part of the free features (for life, with updates!). What’s more is that you’ll be able to write and publish posts to multiple WordPress websites directly from InfiniteWP.
⚙️ Key Features
- Bulk installation of plugins
- Master login feature, so you’ll never have to log into individual sites
While annual payment starts at $147 for ten sites, it goes up to $647 for the Enterprise plan. There’s a 14-day money back guarantee thrown in.
7. BlogVault
Let’s round off our list with one more solution – BlogVault. With incremental, encrypted, offsite, real-time, automatic and on-demand backups, it’s popular as a backup solution. But that’s not all there is to it. In fact, BlogVault is a perfect platform to manage your WordPress, allowing you to do everything from one screen.
A single click allows you to see all the updates to plugins, themes and core, and bulk update them. The centralized dashboard allows you to add, stage, migrate, merge and monitor websites easily. Besides, BlogVault maintains a backup history of 365 days. Backups are encrypted, and you can call up any version to restore.
BlogVault is a premium offering with different plans to suit Personal, Small Business, Developers and Agency users. You can try it for free for 7 days without submitting credit card details. Pricing ranges from $7.40 to $149 per month for one to 20 websites.
⚙️ Key Features
- Free one-click staging (to cloud) and flawless migration
- Cloud backup
- One-click restore
- Firewall that offers real-time threat protection
- Detects complex malware
- Team collaboration
- White label solution and comprehensive client reporting
- Monitor and optimize website performance
- Real-time WooCommerce backups including orders
BlogVault is a powerful management solution, and the higher plans enhance website security.
Wrapping things up 👨🔧
Not sure which tool to pick? Here’s a helpful table that lets you easily compare the features and pricing of each tool:
Feature | CMS Commander | ManageWP | WPRemote | InfiniteWP | BlogVault | Jetpack Manage |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Free / Premium | Premium, 30 days free trial | Free + Premium add-ons | Totally free. No pro features | Free + Premium add-ons | Premium, free trial | Free. WordPress.com account |
Pricing | Starts at $12/mth for 10 sites to $75/mth for 200 sites | Per add-on/ per mth/ per website | – | Starts at $147 for 10 sites to $647 for Enterprise (annual). | From $7.40 to $149 / mth. | – |
Updates for core, themes, plugins | ✓ | ✓ safe updates (Pro) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ (for plugins) |
Bulk install new themes, plugins | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
Backup Sch/ auto ext storage |
✓ ✓ ✓ |
✓ (monthly) realtime (Pro) ✓ |
✓ ✓ ✗ |
✓ (Pro) ✓ (Pro) ✓ (Pro) |
✓ Daily and real-time cloud |
✓ Backup module (Pro) |
Restore | ✓ | ✓ | From backup | ✓ | ✓ | From backup |
Cloning | ✓ | ✓ (Pro) | ✗ | ✓ (Pro) | ✓ | ✗ |
Maintenance mode | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ (Pro) | ✗ | ✗ |
Manage comments | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ (Pro) | ✗ | ✓ (Jetpack Comments) |
Manage users | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ (Pro) | ✓ | ✗ |
Security | Malware scanning | Malware, blacklisting. Adv features in Pro. |
✗ | Wordfence, iThemes and vulnerability scan (Pro) | In higher plans | Brute force protect. Spam /malware (Pro) |
Uptime monitor | ✓ | ✓ (Pro) | ✗ | ✓ (Pro) | In higher plans | ✓ |
Login security | 2FA. No need for passwords | 2FA | No passwords. Unique API keys. |
2FA, login only from specific IPs. | In higher plans | ✗ |
Developer features | ✗ | Code snippets | JSON based REST API | Code snippets (Pro) | Staging, migrate, merge | ✗ |
Google Analytics | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ (Pro) | ✓ (Pro) | |
Special features | Emphasis content management and monetization | Share access with team members without revealing password | Download snapshot of your site | Installed on your own server. No sharing of data with third parties | Real-time uptime monitor, firewall protection and email notifications | Multi-functional plugin |
By using one of these tools to manage multiple WordPress websites, you’ll be able to work more productively and free up time to do fun stuff – like creating content!
Now over to you – do you have any favorite plugin to manage multiple WordPress websites?
You forgot MainWP… not sure why, but we are using it as an agency and works pretty well
Or start the conversation in our Facebook group for WordPress professionals. Find answers, share tips, and get help from other WordPress experts. Join now (it’s free)!